Enuresis, also called bet wetting or incontinence of urine during sleep, represents a serious problem to those who are afflicted. The extreme embarrassment which this condition forces upon the afflicted extracts a tremendous toll in self-esteem and psychological well-being. Moreover, the ruination of clothes and bedding, the cleaning chores, and the unsanitary conditions imposed by exposure to urine extract additional unwanted costs from those associated with a person afflicted with enuresis. Accordingly, a strong need exists for devices and techniques which help the afflicted overcome the condition.
Various training aids directed to the enuresis condition are known. Generally speaking, such training aids include an electrical sensing device which detects the presence of urine and is worn or otherwise located near the urethra. An electrical circuit sounds an alarm when the sensing device encounters urine. The alarm wakes the wearer. In theory, after continued use of such training aids, the wearer is conditioned to become consciously aware of his or her need to urinate, and wakes-up when this need arises.
While numerous versions of the above-described training aids are known, none have achieved wide acceptance because they suffer from various problems. For example, conventional enuresis training aids tend to be too costly for the average consumer. The excessive cost results, at least in part, from complex urine sensors, complex electrical circuits, or a requirement for disposable components which are not readily available. In addition, conventional enuresis training aids are often difficult to clean, uncomfortable for the wearer, and fail to prevent clothes from becoming soaked with urine. Consequently, such aids do not particularly motivate the wearer to continuously and faithfully use the aids. When the wearer fails to continuously and faithfully use the aid, the chances for becoming successfully conditioned to wake up when the need to urinate arises diminish.
Moreover, conventional enuresis training aids work unreliably or are otherwise too slow in sounding an alarm. These problems originate, in large part, from urine sensor designs. One type of conventional urine sensor requires a urine-absorbing material to absorb urine before an alarm sounds. For example, such a material may be sandwiched between two conductive screens. Alternatively, such a material may overlie two conductors which are spaced apart on a common surface. Such designs rely on capillary action to wick the urine into proximity with spaced apart conductors so that the electrolytic property of urine will form an electrical circuit between the spaced apart conductors. However, the use of an absorbing material results in a large quantity of urine being discharged before an alarm sounds.
As a result, the wearer does not wake up until the urination process is well under way. Consequently, such designs are not as effective in conditioning the wearer as they would be if the alarms sounded earlier. In addition, the absorbing materials are often particularly difficult to clean, which motivates against continuous and faithful use of the enuresis training aid. Furthermore, other conventional enuresis training aids attempt to ameliorate the reliability and speed of detection problems by tightly clamping the urine sensors to the wearer's urethra. Unfortunately, such tight clamping causes discomfort for the wearer, which again motivates against continuous and faithful use of the training aid.